Mitt Romney's 2003 endorsement of Democratic Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson
As I noted
earlier, four years ago Markos
mocked Mitt Romney's 2003 endorsement of Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's reelection campaign. Why? Because aside from being a liberal Democrat and a Daily Kos diarist, Rocky Anderson was a leading opponent of the Iraq war who went on to support the impeachment of George W. Bush—not exactly the kind of a guy "conservatives" like Mitt Romney are supposed to endorse.
And it turns out that that it wasn't just the Iraq war that made Romney's endorsement of Rocky Anderson such a big surprise. Anderson was also a supporter of gay marriage, a truly progressive position to have taken in 2003—especially in Utah. Here's what The Boston Globe wrote at the time:
As he tries to build up the GOP in Massachusetts, Romney has endorsed a candidate whose politics are far to the left of him and the Republican Party on key social issues. While Romney is pushing for a death penalty, Anderson opposes it. The Massachusetts governor opposes gay marriages, but Anderson supports the idea. Romney supports President Bush on the Iraq war, but Anderson last winter issued a proclamation condemning President Bush's push to wage war.
And Anderson didn't just support gay marriage, he was a big proponent of GLBT rights. He even—gasp—held a fundraiser at a gay night club called Club Naked. Back to The Globe's report:
Anderson used a gay night club, Club Naked, to raise funds for his campaign. The sponsors credited Anderson with Salt Lake City's "wonderful transformation" in accepting diversity and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender lifestyles.
And to top it all off, Anderson went on to write diaries at Daily Kos. So Mitt Romney endorsed a Daily Kos diarist who supported Bush's impeachment, led demonstrations against the Iraq war, disagreed with capital punishment, and supported marriage equality. Sounds pretty good right? Well, yeah ... if you're on the political left. But if you're a right wing Republican who already has doubts about what Mitt Romney really believes (if he believes anything at all) then this kind of story will only make your doubts grow.
The fact that Romney's rivals have yet to use it against him even though Markos wrote about it four years ago proves at least two things: that they are the worst opposition researchers ever and that even Republicans ought to be reading Daily Kos.